Annual Heather Höpfl Memorial Seminar

Seminar abstract

This paper combines Freeman’s (2010) concept of chrononormativity and Leder’s (1990) work on dys-appearance to explore qualitative data from interviews with menopausal women working in the UK and the Netherlands. In so doing, we argue for a temporal lens to explore the viscerality of menopausal experiences and how these impact women's working lives. Accordingly, we propose a three-fold framework of misrecognition, inspired by Leder and Riach et al. (2014), which adds to the Butlerian understanding of misrecognition by others. We suggest our respondents misrecognize their working menopausal bodies because they are malfunctioning, no longer acting as they should. The second level of misrecognition is of themselves, because they cannot work as hard or as fast as their erstwhile younger selves. The third level of misrecognition does pertain to others, as these women also fear misrecognition by colleagues, lest they be labelled as dilatory or under-performing due to their symptoms.

How to attend this seminar

This seminar is free to attend with no need to register in advance

We welcome you to join us online on Wednesday 19 October at 12pm

Speaker bio

Professor Jo Brewis

Jo Brewis works in the Department of People and Organizations at The Open University, and is also head of said department.

Her research interests include an abiding concern with the interconnections between gender, the body, identity and organizing/ organizations.

Most recently the latter have focused in the main on menopause as a workplace issue, which is also something Jo has personal experience of!